LAPD Family Orientation

Yesterday, Gordon and I attended the family orientation for the Los Angeles Police Department. It was a long day, but it was also really informative.

The day started bright and early at 7AM at the ARTC (Ahmenson Recruit Training Center) in Westchester (which is near LAX). There were about 50 recruits there with their families. in the beginning, the instructors came out and introduced themselves and told everyone what classes they would each be instructing. I was really glad to hear from the people who will be teaching Gordon throughout the academy.
After that, they took the family members to a seperate room while the recruits signed papers. They held a Q&A time with the instructors and then with two recruits who were about to graduate the academy. Then they took us to the mat room where we got a demonstration of the self defense classes the recruits would be taking (And that baton looks like it would hurt like no other). Then we went to watch a current academy class do a physical fitness session (it looked like torture... some of them were even puking). After that, they took the families into a simulator room. Its basically a really expensive video game that the recruits use to do tactics training. They put you in a scenario and you have to decide which weapon to use (if any) and you have to shoot (or taze, or beat with a baton) the suspect and then it will measure how accurate you were with your shots or if you responded appropriately. It was really cool and they let us try it! How awesome is THAT?
After this, we went back and met up with the recruits again for lunch, paper work, etc. Then they got all their stuff that they needed and got fitted for uniforms. We wrote a check for 1/2 of our savings, and we were on our way home!
It was a really good day and I was so glad to learn more about what Gordon is going to be going through over the next six months. It is going to be brutal, but I know he can do it and I am so proud of him for making it this far! :)


On another happy note, we are going to Anahiem this weekend to visit our friends and I cannot wait! We are going to Knott's Halloween Haunt tonight and celebrating Eric's birthday. It should be fun!



S